All I know is,

In today's Han areas in Sichuan, if you visit some old people and ask them where their ancestral home is, nine times out of ten you will get the same answer: "My ancestors moved to Sichuan from Huguang." If you ask again, where did you move here? Often the same answer: "Xiaogan Township, Macheng, Hubei." If you continue to ask, "Do you know why your ancestors filled rivers and lakes?" It is often the same answer: "The Eight Heavenly Kings suppressed Sichuan!" Therefore, most Sichuanese believe that the ancestors of the Han nationality in China were not native to Sichuan, but moved in from Huguang. The reason for moving in was that Zhang (known as the Eight Kings shortly after Zhang Uprising) suppressed Sichuan during the peasant war in the late Ming Dynasty. This statement has a wide and profound impact.

The historical process of "Huguang filling Sichuan" did exist, and it was a long-term immigration movement in the late Yuan, early Ming and early Qing dynasties. Compared with historical truth, folklore has obvious expansion and rendering, and there are also some deviations. The historical event of "Zhang suppressed Sichuan" also happened. Compared with historical facts, folklore is somewhat wrong and distorted. See Yuan Tingdong: Biography of Zhang, Sichuan People's Publishing House, 198 1 edition. If these deviations or mistakes are excluded, we can see that the so-called "Huguang filling Sichuan" has been a great integration of population and culture for many years, which has a great influence on the development of Bashu history.

Bashu area in Tang Dynasty was at the forefront of national economic and cultural development. In the Song Dynasty, its economic and cultural development was still in the advanced ranks in the whole country, especially in the Southern Song Dynasty. The population of Bashu area accounts for 23.2% of the whole Southern Song Dynasty, but the fiscal revenue accounts for 1/3 of the whole Southern Song Dynasty, and the supply of military food also accounts for 1/3. It was the main economic basis for the Southern Song Dynasty to persist in the war of resistance against Japan, and there was even a sigh of "before Shu perished in the Song Dynasty".

However, after the Bashu army and civilians tried their best to persist in the long-term war of resistance against gold and finally won the great victory of preventing the Jin soldiers from entering the Sichuan basin, they persisted in the war of resistance against Mongolia for half a century. The war was basically fought inside the basin. Mongolian troops entered Chengdu three times, and Mongolian Khan Mongo was also wounded and died in the fishing city. The long-term tug-of-war has caused great losses to people's lives and property. From the whole Sichuan area, there is even a record that "Shu people suffered many disasters, countless deaths and injuries, and there was nothing in a thousand miles" ("Yu Ji: Epitaph of Lady Shi Shicheng", see Volume 20 of Daoyuan Xuegu). There are inevitably some exaggerated elements in these words, but there is no doubt that the economy is extremely broken and the population has dropped sharply. Because in the tug-of-war of nearly 50 years, in addition to the destruction of war, agricultural production has withered due to long-term war, and there is a serious shortage of food. "Woye thousands of miles, inaccessible, no fixed abode. If you don't plow, you can't harvest in autumn and plant in spring "(see Wu Changyi's introduction above), which was an inevitable reality at that time. In addition, in the Song Dynasty, many government troops took advantage of the fire to rob, or "plundered the people's wealth" or "burned in the official clan", so that "troubled times are not as bad as the disaster of the Japanese, ... so there is a rumor that there are more enemies in the field than foreign enemies, and this disaster cannot last for one day" ("Wu Changyi: On Four Things to Save Shu"). These records were written by Shu people at that time and should be credible. Due to the above reasons, the population of Bashu area in Yuan Dynasty dropped sharply to less than one tenth of that in Southern Song Dynasty. See the previous chapter "Nationalities and Population" for specific figures.

In the face of such a serious broken situation in Bashu area between Song and Yuan Dynasties, the rulers of Yuan Dynasty did not take measures to organize immigration by the government except reclaiming land to ensure the basic needs of military food. Without labor, production cannot be resumed. Therefore, in the Yuan Dynasty, the economy of Bashu didn't get obvious recovery in recent 100 years. According to the book Statistics of Household Registration, Fields and Land Taxes in China in Past Dynasties written by Liang, the tax paid by Sichuan provinces to the central government in Yuan Dynasty was the third lowest among the non-ethnic minority provinces in China, accounting for only 0.96% of the national fiscal revenue. In addition, according to the data in yuan dynasty history, among all provinces and regions in Sichuan, wine tax accounts for the third lowest, vinegar tax accounts for the first lowest, and business tax accounts for the third lowest. Compared with the Southern Song Dynasty, which accounts for about one third of the total income of the Southern Song Dynasty, this situation can hardly be reduced.

At the end of the yuan dynasty, the fire of the peasant uprising of the Red Scarf Army burned everywhere. Ming Yu Zhen, a subordinate of Xu Shouhui, led the army into Bashu, and later claimed to be the king of Gansu in Chongqing, and later changed his name to proclaimed himself emperor. Ming Yuzhen was a native of Suizhou, Huguang (now Suixian, Hubei), and his troops were basically farmers in Hubei. Ming Yuzhen not only brought hundreds of thousands of troops, but also brought a large number of farmers with less land and more people into Bashu area with less population and less land to cultivate agriculture. This should be the beginning of the famous "Huguang fills Sichuan". For example, in the Preface to Liu's Genealogy, it is said: "During the chaos of the Yuan Dynasty, Hunan people often came to Shu together" (see Volume 4 of Yi Weng's Family Collection). Yu Zhen's "Daxia" regime in the Ming Dynasty only existed for two generations and nine years, and was unified by the Ming Dynasty established by Zhu Yuanzhang. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Huguang immigrants continued to flow into Sichuan. In the 14th year of Hongwu in Ming Taizu (138 1), the population of Sichuan increased to1460,000, and foreign immigrants, especially Huguang immigrants, accounted for the main part of the population increase in this period. As Wang Weixian's "The Memorial of the Nine Immortals" in Volume V of Guangxu's "Tongchuan Prefecture Records" said: "Yuan Fa, where the army and horses come, only those who do something will be slaughtered. Shu people such as Yu Jie and Yang Li can't hold on, so Sichuan suffers alone. " At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, there were seven or eight indigenous families in Zhongjiang County, and the rest were from other provinces. "These immigrants will soon become Sichuanese.

In the seventh year of Kangxi (1668), Dedi Zhang, the governor of Sichuan, recorded a review of the elders in Sichuan in an essay: "Chachuan Province is a relic, and most of its ancestral homes are Huguang people." I went to the countryside to visit the old people. They all said that every time Sichuan was robbed, there was no land. I had no choice but to move to other provinces to fill in the place. (Letters from Home, 10th Edition of Historical Materials of Ming and Qing Dynasties, 20071month16th) So-called "Huguang filling Sichuan", a large-scale immigration movement began in this way, and reached its first climax in the late Yuan and early Ming Dynasties.

The so-called "Huguang" includes today's Hubei and Hunan, and Macheng and Xiaogan in Hubei are the first. It is estimated that this area is an important transit point for large-scale immigrants to Sichuan in the early Qing Dynasty (my grandfather told me that my family also moved from Xiaogan Township, Macheng County). It is a strange phenomenon that Macheng and Xiaogan counties are almost mistaken for "Xiaogan Township in Macheng County" in the old people and folk literature in central Sichuan. According to the statistics of 7 16 households in some local chronicles and genealogies, it is found that only 65 households lived in Shu before the end of Yuan Dynasty, accounting for only 9%. Among the 220 families who moved in before the Qing Dynasty, there were 17 1 family in Huguang, accounting for 77.7%. Among them, Hubei Macheng has 15 1, accounting for 88.3% of Huguang ethnic group. Most of the immigrants who moved in before the Qing Dynasty moved in at the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty. For example, according to the existing genealogy statistics, there were 58 immigrants before the Qing Dynasty, 40 of whom moved in the late Yuan and early Ming Dynasties, accounting for 69%. See: Zhang's Textual Research on Books-An Analysis of Huguang's Filling in Sichuan, Sichuan People's Publishing House, 1980. Over the years, I have paid attention to the ancestral homes of some celebrities in Ming and Qing Dynasties, such as Yang Shen, a famous writer, Zhang Jiayin, a famous poet, Liao Ping, a famous economist in Qing Dynasty, Wang Sanwei and Li Siyou, the largest salt operators in Zigong, and Wu Jinsan, the largest salt operator in Wutongqiao. Their ancestors all entered Sichuan in the process of "Huguang filling Sichuan" at the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty.

At the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty, a large number of immigrants entered Shu, which can be roughly divided into four categories:

1. After the Red Scarf Army peasant uprising began, several rich people (including some Mongols) in Hubei Province took refuge in Sichuan.

2. As mentioned above, Ming Yuzhen led a large number of Hubei soldiers and civilians into Shu. After Zhu Yuanzhang's army captured Hubei, some former Red Scarf Army headquarters or people associated with the Red Scarf Army fled to the Ming "Daxia" regime in Bashu for protection in order to escape the attack of Zhu Yuanzhang's subordinates.

3. Zhu Yuanzhang sent Tang He to attack Bashu from Hubei and Fu Youde from Shaanxi, and then he became a Bashu native of Sichuan.

4. In the early Ming Dynasty, in order to control the situation in Bashu, a group of officers and men were detained in Bashu. In view of the sparsely populated Bashu area and the urgent need for reclamation, the central government of the Ming Dynasty deliberately arranged for Huguang immigrants near Bashu to enter Sichuan, which was the main part of the whole process of "Huguang filling Sichuan" in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty. Therefore, many existing genealogies record the experience of how the ancestors were "ordered to enter Sichuan" during the Hongwu period in the early Ming Dynasty.

The above is the general situation of "Huguang filling Sichuan" in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty.

As a result of the "Huguang filling Sichuan" at the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty, the people's life was relatively stable, the economy recovered and the population increased. However, the Bashu economy in the Ming Dynasty did not fully recover, and it entered a longer and more severe period of war and destruction than in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and the Bashu people suffered the most cruel catastrophe in history. There is no difference between ancient and modern times in the existence of this catastrophe. However, people have different opinions on the cause of this disaster.

In the history books of Qing Dynasty, many people think that this catastrophe was caused by "Zhang killing Shu" or "Eight Kings suppressing Sichuan".

Another view is that Zhang's peasant army fought against the Ming army, the landlord armed forces and later the Qing army in Bashu. In a few years of life-and-death struggle, of course, we have to kill people; In order to consolidate the new regime and suppress the rebels, it is of course necessary to kill people. However, Zhang's activities in Bashu were less than four years, which was only a short period in the 80-year war in Bashu area. Zhang Peasant Army can't be the main reason for the sharp drop of population and the interruption of production in Bashu area. Most historians today hold this view.

In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the population of Bashu area dropped sharply, which was caused by both natural disasters and man-made disasters.

Let's talk about natural disasters first. In the last 70 years of Ming dynasty, drought, flood, locust plague and plague. Such as "drought, locusts, winter hunger, people eat each other, vegetation is exhausted, and faces are opposite" (Gu Yingtai: "Ming History" Volume 75); Southern Sichuan is covered with water. "People who went to Zhoutang and Gaofu were exempted, and the rest were gone" (Five Elements of Ming History). In the early Qing Dynasty, it was popular again, and many places in Jiangjin area were "the whole village died" (Volume 5 of Jiangjin County Records of Jiaqing). Such records can be seen everywhere.

The so-called man-made disaster mainly refers not to the casualties of the two armies on the battlefield, but to the direct slaughter and plunder of civilians in the war. As early as the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, there was a Tusi Yang Yinglong rebellion, and during the Apocalypse and Chongzhen years, there was a Tusi luxury Chongming rebellion. At that time, "besieged for a hundred days, the so-called Woye was half defeated by weeds" (Kangxi's "Chengdu Fuzhi" volume 35). After the peasant uprising broke out in the late Ming Dynasty, Li Zicheng and Zhang entered Sichuan several times, and Zhang finally established his capital in Chengdu. The peasant army wants to suppress "squires", "bureaucrats" and all kinds of rebels, and the Ming army wants to suppress "thieves" everywhere. The two sides have been fighting for more than ten years, that is, more than ten years of lack of food. Zhang destroyed the organs of power at all levels in the Ming Dynasty, but failed to effectively establish a new ruling order. After Zhang Sacrifice and the peasant army retreated from Yunnan and Guizhou, there was a power vacuum in the province for more than ten years, showing an unprecedented disorder. According to people's records at that time, "the rabble from all directions gathered in Chengdu, and the devourer was invincible." A few people who survived were found dead in the atmosphere, the countryside was barren, famine occurred frequently, father and son were displaced, and people ate people "(ibid.). At the same time, the Qing army entered Sichuan again. The war between the Qing army and the remnants of the Ming army and the anti-Qing armed forces has not been completely extinguished. The rebels in Wu Sangui fought the Qing army in Sichuan. It was not until the twentieth year of Kangxi (1680) that the Bashu war basically stopped.

In this way, Bashu area has experienced about 80 years of war and natural disasters, with a sharp drop in population and an extreme shortage of production. As the center of previous wars, the situation in Chengdu Plain is particularly bad. It turned out that the bustling cities were full of tigers and leopards, so that the governor of Sichuan in the early Qing Dynasty could not be stationed in Chengdu, while Baoning (now Langzhong), who was stationed in northern Sichuan, did not settle in Chengdu until the eighteenth year of Shunzhi. As for some county towns, it was not until the Kangxi period that the county government was built.

Facing the situation of Sichuan's vast territory, sparsely populated and broken economy, the Qing government had to take corresponding measures. On the one hand, a large number of counties established in the Ming Dynasty were abolished and merged. Take Chengdu and Chongqing, the most prosperous cities in the past, for example. Chengdu has cancelled Shuangliu, Pengxian, Chongning and Huayang. Chongqing government cancelled Dazu, Anju, Bishan, Tongliang, Dingyuan and Wulong. These counties did not recover until the last years of Kangxi and the early years of Yongzheng. On the other hand, it is to use administrative means to immigrate from other provinces into Sichuan as much as possible.

In the early Qing Dynasty, immigrants entered Sichuan on a large scale and for a long time (from the end of Shunzhi to the middle of Qianlong, totaling about 100), and the official measures were specific. In the tenth year of Shunzhi, when the Qing government had not controlled the whole Sichuan, it was declared that there was no ownerless wasteland to cultivate seeds in Sichuan, which was a permanent occupation and was exempted from land tax for five years. The government is also trying to support the seeds of cattle. The province fled from other provinces and was allowed to return to China. Immigrants from other provinces to Sichuan were granted naturalization. Later, various measures were taken to encourage local officials to recruit refugees. In the place where 300 state and county officials were placed, the current officials were promoted to a higher level, and the alternate officials were given real positions. Under various measures, a large number of immigrants were attracted from Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Fujian, Guangdong, Shaanxi and other provinces in the early Qing Dynasty. Because it is still dominated by Huguang area, it is generally called "Huguang filling Sichuan", which is a larger "Huguang filling Sichuan" after immigrants entered Sichuan in the early Ming Dynasty. In order to organize immigration to Sichuan, Shunzhi and Kangxi set up only one governor in Huguang and Sichuan twice, called Governor Chuanhu, first in Jingzhou, Hubei, and then in Chongqing, Sichuan.

It is difficult to estimate how many people immigrated to Sichuan in the early Qing Dynasty. However, from the analysis of some materials, there are undoubtedly more immigrants than aborigines in the population of Qing Dynasty. For example, during the Qianlong period, Dou said in Preface to Sichuan Tongzhi: "Its people are fresh and indigenous, mostly immigrants from Huguang, Shaanxi, Jiangxi, Guangdong and other places, as well as merchants from all directions, with different customs and human feelings." Of course, the proportion of counties and States is different, and the counties in Chengdu and western Sichuan Plain are higher than other regions, up to more than 90%. For example, Kangxi's Preface to the Official History of Chengdu said: Chengdu House; "Among the hundreds of provinces of Qin, Jin, Chu and Yu, there are only one or two indigenous people." Fu Chongyi, a person from the late Qing Dynasty, said in a survey of Chengdu people: "At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, there was chaos in the world, and tourists from all provinces entered Sichuan and settled in it, so today Chengdu people are all from other provinces." People from other provinces are mostly from Huguang, with the largest number from Shaanxi. During the Jiaqing period, six pairs of mountain people described it more vividly in Jincheng Zhuzhi Ci: "My aunt married my second aunt Su in Shaanxi and my sister-in-law Ersao in Jiangxi. "When Jiyou first asked his native place, he was no longer old Chengdu. It is estimated from the situation of the whole province that foreign immigrants account for about 70% of the total population.

It is inevitable that so many people have entered Sichuan from other provinces, reclaimed a large number of wasteland and promoted economic recovery. What we want to see more is that so many foreigners, scholars, farmers, workers, Jia, technicians and professional servants enter Sichuan, which will inevitably bring production technology and advanced culture from all over the world to Sichuan. For example, sweet potato (sweet potato), which occupies a very important position in Sichuan grain crops today, was introduced from Fujian and Guangdong at that time. Jiaqing's History of Zizhou has been published for eight years: "All kinds of barren soil and sand can be planted." First, enriching the people began to love it in Fujian and Guangdong, and now many natives are preparing for famine. "Another example is tobacco, which is the main cash crop in Sichuan and was also introduced in the early Qing Dynasty. For example, the Sichuan University Library's Rebuilding Fu's Genealogy contains: Fu Murong, a native of Ruijin, Jiangxi, moved to Jintang, Sichuan during the Yongzheng period. " Tobacco is widely planted, but it is necessary for the Manchu and Mongolian Eight Banners to fight, so once Fu's tobacco was more important than Jincheng. "Sichuan cuisine, Sichuan wine and Sichuan opera, which are the most praised" authentic Sichuan flavor "in today's books, were also developed after the integration of various ingredients imported from other places in the Qing Dynasty.

The above is the general situation of the famous "Huguang filling Sichuan" in Bashu history. From the above discussion, it can be concluded that "Huguang filling Sichuan" is a historical process of large-scale immigration into Sichuan from the early Ming Dynasty, which reached its climax in the early Qing Dynasty after several sharp population declines in Sichuan. Therefore, Sichuan has accepted a large number of immigrants, the total number of which exceeds that of Sichuan natives. A large number of immigrants into Sichuan are not only the integration of population, but also the integration of culture. This integration has promoted the development of Sichuan's economy and culture, and also made the recovery and development of Sichuan's economy and culture more inclusive since the Qing Dynasty.